My one wish for the world?

More wishes!

Ha ha ha ha…oh, wait…that loophole got plugged?

Dang it.

Well, fine. Then my wish is for everyone to have 30 seconds of positive inner reflection per day. Think about it: What if everyone (myself included) in the entire population took 30 seconds each day to reflect on the good things?

We’re all so busy and focused on what we lack, we gloss over the things we have. In fact, if you’re reading this on a computer, smart phone, or tablet…and I guess you have to be…then I say you’ve got it made compared to most of the world.

But going one step further: most of us have loving family and friends. Our health is reasonably good. Food is close at hand (too close sometimes). We’ve got books to read, movies to see, and TV to watch. There are vacations or conferences or weekends to look forward to. Shoot, maybe the best thing in your life is that there’s a bag of chocolate chips in the pantry…but it’s something. 

I’m not trying to say we’re ungrateful, but that our day-to-day commitments come at us so furiously that we don’t take that moment to *warning: cliché approaching* “stop and smell the roses.” 

If everyone took half a minute daily to reflect on what’s good, I bet we’d be a lot happier as a world overall. Maybe we’ll shake off the road rage next time that dude cuts us off. Or we’ll forgive our spouses two minutes sooner for leaving the toilet seat up (sorry, sweetie) for the ump-teenth time. Or we’ll just smile for a little longer every day.

It doesn’t sound like a lot, but over a lifetime, I bet it sure feels like it.

Let’s get the essentials out of the way, shall we?

For the people:

Access to education.

Access to clean water.

Access to basic human rights.

From the people:

Respect for our earth’s resources, and animals.

That said, I want to echo my fellow Muses. I wish for everyone to know empathy and love. I wish for everyone to have at least one great friend. I wish for everyone to have hope and a dream—and the chance to fight for it.

What about you? What are your wishes for the world?

Okay, I admit it.  I am not the type of person who wishes for world peace.  I mean, I want world peace, I am just a little too jaded to really believe that it's possible.  The human condition is such a fragile, complicated thing that solving one ill, usually only results in a new one cropping up in its place.  Sometimes Peace is only achieved through oppression and fear.  And sometimes wars are justified.  Even vital. 

Despite this depressing world view, I am a romantic at heart.  And I do have a wish for the world.

My wish is smaller. More personal.  I wish for you, and everyone, to experience mutual love and respect with at least one person in your life.

The kind of love that fills up your heart and makes you feel squishy inside. 

The kind of  love that allows you to trust another person with your inner most secrets. 

The kind of love that you can't turn off even if you wanted to. 

The kind of love that makes you want to try to be the person that you feel like when you're with the person you love. 

The kind of love that gives you the courage to risk losing your heart.

The kind of love that is tempered with respect, because your love is not worth wasting on someone who does not respect you.

I wish this for you and everyone, because love is what makes this world bearable.  Love is what gets us through the hard times.  It's what gets us through the pain of living. Love is what allows us to really connect.

And if we can't have world peace, maybe we can have something more precious, a personal peace, for whatever time we are given.

Does it have to be just one?  Our blog theme this week is hard to pin down.  I wish for world peace.  For the sea ice to stop receding and the ocean levels to stop rising.  For more recycling and less consumption.  For Isaac to leave the poor residents of the Gulf Coast alone.  For better education, more libraries, and good grammar.

However, our theme this week is one wish for the world. Donna's post yesterday used a wish that would solve many of the world's ills. It's a wish that I would wish, too. Unfortunately, I can't just write a post saying, "Ditto Donna," as much as I would like to.

 So today, my wish will be for people to think before they speak. Or write. Or tweet.

One of the wonderful things about being a writer whose work is published many months after the initial words are put down is that I can revise. A lame or clunky sentence can be edited and polished and made to shine. A thoughtless description can be changed into something more vivid.

I've recently been writing about a character who more often than not speaks without thinking. These things get her into trouble. and yet, change is difficult. I think we've all had the experience of wanting to take our words back. And I hope I'm not the only one who has deleted a tweet after reconsidering. Perhaps things would be different for certain politicians if they had thought about what they were saying before making comments that makes one look fickle or ignorant. Because in today's world once something is spoken - and certainly once something is written down - it doesn't go away. In fact, sometimes it takes on a life of its own.

Think before you speak. Think about the ripples that will echo out from that statement, that joke, that retort, that opinion. Please continue to have opinions, to speak freely. Just consider the consequences. For a moment. And choose your words, your forum, your responses carefully.

Of course, my wish also ties back in with Donna's. Because when people have empathy, they think about how their words might affect others before they use them. So really, my wish is "Ditto Donna."

"If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

This week our theme is A Wish for the World and, frankly, I was stumped.  I have so many, many wishes for the future.  How was I to write a blog post about such a huge topic?  But the more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to one big idea.  My wish for the world is ... 

Empathy.

These days my phone, television, Twitter feeds, and Facebook pages are filled with passionate political statements and heart felt agendas. Because of my particular background, I might be a bit unusual.  I have "friends" who post on my social media sites from the far, far right and some who post from the far, far left (and probably every point in between).  Sometimes it's looks like the current debate, on almost any topic, is being heatedly argued every time I log in.  

If I could just introduce one friend to the other in ways that would allow them to empathize with each other...

"Hi, Shelly, this is Carol.  Carol brings her thirty two year old, severely disabled stepson home every weekend to give him a break from the group home where he currently lives.  However, it doesn't give Carol a break or a weekend. Ever.  She divorced his father ten years ago, but will never leave his son.  On most evenings after work, she sits at home alone -- with phone, cable, and sometimes electricity turned off for late payments - until it's time to go to work again. Carol drives all her coworkers crazy with her constant talking and socializing.   

If you could climb inside of her skin and walk around in it, you might learn something very important.  You might learn to understand Carol."

"Hi Carol, this is Shelly.  Shelly lost her job, house, and her retirement in the economic downturn.  She makes it every month by getting a payday loan or pawning what little gold jewelry she has left.  Shelly is angry and bitter.  She never has a good word to say about anyone.  Little do they know she sits with her mother in a cancer ward every tuesday morning slowly watching the chemo kill her before the cancer can.  If you could climb inside her skin and walk around in it, you might learn something very important.  You might learn to understand Shelly."

 Isn't that what writer's try to do?  To really listen to the people, and characters, who have stories to tell?  To stand in their shoes? To write multi-dimensional, complex stories with embedded reasons why they became who they are today. But it takes a heart that listens to truely hear those stories. 

"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives." 
Stephen Covey

And what about those villains  in our stories and in our lives.  Even they have stories.

 "I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy." 
- Gustav M. Gilbert, German-speaking American prison psychologist at Spandau prison in Berlin, where Nazi war crimes defendants were held, 1945

So my wish for the world is empathy and I believe we can get there by sharing, not just our political persuasions this election season, but also our story.  Write for empathy.  Even with your most difficult character.